CURRENT POPULATION TRENDS IN BRITAIN
| Published date | 01 February 1962 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9485.1962.tb00376.x |
| Date | 01 February 1962 |
CURRENT POPULATION TRENDS IN BRITAIN
A.
HOLMANS
1.
INTRODUCTION
TRENDS
in the population of Great Britain during the past decade
have differed greatly from what had previously been expected, and
views about probable future trends have in consequence had to be
drastically revised. During the
1930's
it came to be realised that if
trends in fertility' then current were to continue indefinitely the popu-
lation
of
Britain would decline. At what date the decline would begin
and how rapidly it would proceed depended on whether
a
continuation
of existing fertility rates was assumed,
or
whether the long-standing
decline
in
fertility rates was assumed to
go
still further.
In
1934
P.E.P. published
a
set
of
estimates showing the total population
of
Great Britain at
42.68
million in
1951
and
32.71
million
in
1976,
compared with
44.83
million
in
1931.*
Among the titles
of
books
published on the subject during the decade were
The
Menace
of
Under
Population3
and
The
Mennce
of
British L)epop~lation.~
Among the
results of these fears was the setting up of the Royal Commission
on Population in
1944.
By the time the Commission had completed
its work, however, the rise
in
the
number of births during the war
and the immediate post-war years had made any decline in total
population much less imminent than had been feared in the
1930's.
It was calculated that if average family size remained constant at the
same level as among couples married in
1927-38,
the population would
grow slowly till about
1977,
and thereafter decline ~lightly.~ Sixteen
separate projections of the future population were prepared for the
Commission by its Statistics Committee to show the effects of com-
bining different assumptions about fertility, mortality and migration
;
the general conclusion to which they pointed was that ultimately the
population would decline unless there was a rise
in
the average size
of family.
'
Fertility'
is
used in the demographic sense
of
the occurrence
of
live
Political and Economic Planning.
P[nnnir?g,
No.
27
(1934).
G.
F.
McCleary (Allen and Unwin, London. 1937).
Royal Commission on Population.
Reporf
(Crnd.
7695
of
1949), Chapter
9.
births, not the biological sense
of
physical ability
to
bear children.
:'
Enid Charles
(Watts,
London, 1936).
31
32
A.
HOLMANS
In
1954,
when the Committee on the Financial and Economic Con-
sequences of Provision for Old Age (the Phillips Committee)
reported,0 information which had become available since the Royal
Commission had completed its work indicated an upward revision
of
the estimated number of future births, by about
30,000
a
year in the
1950's
and nearly
40,000
a
year in the
196O's.l
Even
so,
the picture of
future population trends that emerged was one
of
a
rapidly rising
number of old people, an almost stationary population of working
age, and
a
declining number of young people.
As
a
result of a rapid
rise in the number of births, however, the prospect has been trans-
formed and there now
(1963)
appears a strong probability
of
a
large
increase in the number of young people. The prospect of
a
decline
in
population has vanished for the rest
of
the century, barring an abrupt
reversal of recent trends. Instead there is the prospect
of
a
faster
increase in the next two decades than at any time since
1901-11
;
'
and among the recent additions to the literature on population trends
in Britain is a Fabian pamphlet entitled
Too
Mmzy
People?'
The purpose of this article is to outline the way in which this
change in population trends and prospects has come about, and to
consider some
of
its implications. Since changes
in
the size
of
and
composition of a population
are
the result
of
births, deaths, and
migration, it is necessary to consider trends in each
of
these separately.
The largest part of the discussion will be devoted to births, partly
because of the complexity of the circumstances that determine the
number
of
births
in
any given period of time, and partly because it is
changes
in
numbers
of
births that have done most to alter
our
views
about likely trends
in
Britain's population.
For
most purposes
it
would be preferable to conduct the analysis
in terms of the United Kingdom as a whole, but for administrative
reasons this is not always possible. Vital statistics are collected by
the three Registrars-General and reported on by them separately
;
and
only in
a
few instances are the statistics aggregated
to
form United
Kingdom
or
even Great Britain" totals. Moreover, the data about
births in England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are not
bCmd. 9333
of
1954. The analysis
of
future
population prospects
is
contained in a memorandum by the Government Actuary's Department
published
as
Appendix
I1
to the report.
'The
tables compared
lire
in Appendix
11
of Cmd. 9333 and Table
XXXVlI
on p. 83
of
Crnd. 7695.
"The estimates
of
the future population referred
to
are those prepared
by the Goveinment Actuary's Department and published in
Monthly
Digest
of
S/crtistics,
April 1963, Table
11.
A. Carter (Fabian Society, London,
1962).
The United Kingdom includes Northern Ireland, but Great Britain
does
not.
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